Question Programmable Controller to “Spin Down” Idling Storage HDDs?

chane

Member
Apr 18, 2010
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My next tower build will be used often with my home theater system to play BD movies via JRiver player (after decryption). Running Windows 10, it will have an AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 65 watt TDP or Intel Comet Lake Xeon 80 watt TDP processor.

The OS will be on an SSD and there will be one 2.5” or 3.5” 1 TB storage HDD. And there will be an internal or external optical BD drive.

Of course, I’d want this home theater pc to run as coolly and quietly as possible, while not having the storage hard drive needlessly spinning. So are there hard drive controllers which can be programmed to power off or to “spin down” to a very low rpm-or to a dead stop, if that is safe?

Of course, I’d be backing up data from that HDD at regular intervals to my server.

If there are such controllers how reliable and essentially “crash proof” are they?

Any widely used brands/models?
 
Last edited:

mpo

Senior member
Jan 8, 2010
457
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Default Windows 10 spin down time is 20 minutes.

You can change it under Power Options -> Change advanced power settings -> Hard disk